Introdution to Layout

Target Audience:

Those wanting a thorough introduction to Layout's powerful animating, surfacing, lighting, and camera controls.

Course Description:

This course covers keyframe animation features (such as keyframes, wireframe previews, spline controls, parenting, null objects, envelopes, and the motion graph), lighting functions (such as the five types of lights, shadowing options, and lens flares), surfacing controls (such as Color, Specularity, Glossiness, Transparency, image mapping, and procedural textures), camera controls (such as resolution, anti-aliasing, depth of field, and motion blur), and plug-ins (installing, renaming, and a survey of important plug-ins). Instructor-led demonstration, student exercises and hands-on practice help reinforce the concepts learned in class.

Course Prerequisites:

Familiarity with LightWave's Layout interface. Basic understanding of polygonal 3D geometry including the relationship between polygons and surface attributes. Ability to open and close the panels, to load scenes and objects, and to move, rotate, and size objects in Layout. The Fundamentals of LightWave 3D course meets these requirements.

* indicates student tasks

2. Review of Layout
      a. Interface organization
            - icons, axes, grid, panels, the views
            - editing the views and items in a scene
            - frames and keyframing in LightWave

3. Layout's keyframe features
      a. Keyframes
            - what a keyframe is
            - motion through multiple frames is determined by splines
            - examples: car on a curve; chess piece move; cow in pasture; bouncing ball
            * make a three keyframe animation of logo fly-in
      b. Wireframe previews
            - make wireframe preview
            - save/load previews
            * make stepped preview
      c. Spline controls
            - what spline controls are for: tension, continuity, bias, linear
            - examples of motions affected by spline controls
            * add spline controls to previous motions
      d. Parenting
            - about the parent-child relationship
            - examples of scenes using parenting: hands on a clock; wheels on a car; wings on a butterfly; sun, earth, moon
            * make a scene which uses parenting
      e. Null objects
            - what null objects are
            - examples of scenes using null objects: center of galaxy; handle for set of lights; any big, multi-part object
            * make a scene which uses null objects
      f. Envelopes
            - what envelopes are
            - examples: light brightness; object dissolve; lens flares; camera zoom
            - graph editor panel features: graph visibility tools; mouse functions; shift and scale keys; copy/paste
            * make a light brightness envelope
      g. Motion graph
            - the motion graph is an "envelope" for position, orientation, and scale
            * make car starting slowly by dragging velocity graph keyframes

4. Lighting
      a. The five types of lights
            - their icons, illumination and shadow differences
            - common light attributes
            - individual light attributes
            - ambient light
            * make a three-point lighting set-up
      b. Shadow options
            - compare shadow-mapped to ray-traced shadows
      c. Lens flares
            - what lens flares are
            * set up an enveloped lens flare

5. Surfacing
      a. The primary surface attributes
            - smoothing
            - double sided
            - surface color
            - luminosity and diffuse
            - specularity and glossiness
            * set some primary surface attributes
      b. The secondary surface attributes
            - reflectivity
            - reflection map options
            - transparency
            - refraction
            - edge transparency
            * set some secondary surface attributes
      c. Procedural textures
            - what procedural textures are
            - examples: checkerboard, grid, dots, marble, etc.
            * put a checkerboard on a floor
            - inside/outside values and fractal noise
            * make some clouds using fractal noise transparency
      d. Image maps
            - what image maps are and how they differ from procedural textures
            - image map options: planar, cylindrical, spherical, cubic, front projection mapping
            - image visibility options: image pop-up, blending, repeat, negative
            - image placement options: size, center, falloff, velocity, axis, world coordinates
            * apply image maps to a TV screen and a pop can
            - reference objects and their use
            * put a decal on a plane using a reference object

6. Camera controls
      a. Resolution
            - preset versus custom resolution
            - pixel aspect ratio
            - segment memory
            * set segment memory
      b. Antialiasing
            - antialiasing level
            - adaptive sampling
            * compare Soft Filter on and off on render quality
      c. Depth of field
            - what depth of field (DOF) is and how LightWave creates it
            - focal distance
            - f-stop
            * set a DOF shot
      d. Motion blur
            - what motion blur is and how LightWave creates it
            - blur settings: length, dither, particles
            * set motion blur on a shot

7. Behind the scenes
      a. The configuration (config) file
      b. The scene file
      c. The object file

8. Plug-ins
      a. Installing plug-ins
      b. Renaming plug-ins
      c. Survey of some plug-ins: Effector, parenting, Morph-gizmo, Cel-shader, Skytracer, blur, etc.

9. Conclusion
      a. Reiterate any weak areas
      b. Course synopsis
      c. Where to go from here
      d. Questions?

Appendices
      a. The LightWave Config file
      b. A LightWave scene file
      c. Selected keyboard shortcuts